Not Suitable for Kids (NSFK)
I’m glad the children have Kids’ Church today because today’s message is definitely not suitable for kids! Since many people don’t read the Bible for themselves, they are surprised to find that it contains honest, human, and sometimes off-putting stories that shouldn’t be read to children.
Yet, these are the parts I love to preach because they show that God cannot be put neatly inside a box. His Book is filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, and it needs to be read for us know Him and know how He wants us to live.
While preparing this message I was reminded of one I did last year. God was about to kill Moses for not circumcising his son, but He relented when Moses’s wife circumcised the son and touched the skin to the bottoms of Moses’s feet. (Yup – it’s in there.) Today’s story is definitely comparable in its uncomfortable content and surprising moments, so buckle up!
Let me introduce the flawed character we will consider today: Judah. There aren’t a ton of stories in the Bible about Judah, and what stories there are usually don’t present Judah as smelling like roses.
Judah is the fourth-born of the twelve sons of Jacob. (God later changed Jacob’s name to Israel.) Judah is the head of one of the twelve tribes of Israel whose history is recounted throughout the entire Old Testament.
The first time we meet Judah, he has come up with the amazing idea of selling his younger brother Joseph into slavery. Judah is also the one who promises his father that if they take the youngest brother, Benjamin, to Egypt to get food during the severe famine, he will make sure Benjamin returns safely. (That’s not at all what happens.)
Yet, for some reason, God graciously chooses Judah to be honored among his brothers. Listen to the blessing Judah’s dying father prays over him:
Genesis 49:8-10 –8 “Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you. 9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse him? 10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
Do you catch the significance of these verses? Jesus Christ is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Judah is an ancestor of Jesus. Jesus is the Ruler from whom the scepter will never depart.
Additionally, as you read through the Old Testament, you see that Judah is one of the two southern tribes of Israel – the tribes who follow God the most closely. The city of Jerusalem was built in the land of Judah. So even though the stories about Judah that are found between Genesis 37 and Genesis 49 aren’t at all flattering, his lineage is a key part of the Israelites’ story.
The Story of Judah and Tamar
Today we will read all of Genesis chapter 38. [Interesting side note: this chapter is dropped right in between the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers (Chapter 37) and the story of Joseph’s life as a slave in Egypt] (Chapter 39).
Genesis 38:1-6 – Judah’s family. – introducing all the characters in the story.
Verse 7 – Er. – Judah’s son Er is wicked in the Lord’s sight, so God takes his life. At first glance this seems like a startling detail. We Christians live under the New Covenant, and to us it seems cruel that God would kill people for their wickedness. But throughout the Old Testament we see that this is how God interacted with His people. This was even part of their codified law. God told them that if they obeyed Him they would be blessed; but if they walked away from Him they would be cursed. It was a very transactional relationship. Praise God this is no longer how He interacts with us! The Old Testament system always led to failure because we humans are flawed sinners with no hope of meeting God on His level.
Verses 8-10 – Onan’s obligation and sin. The concept of a brother fulfilling the duty to a widow so that the deceased brother’s name could live on was widely understood and practiced at this time. (This is evidenced by the fact that a single Hebrew word conveys the entire situation.) And while God hadn’t yet given the law to Moses, this exact regulation was included in the law when it was given. (Deuteronomy 29.) However, while this was a widely practiced expectation, it was also widely despised by the brothers who had to fulfill this duty. That’s why God made it a law.
Onan, being unwilling to give his brother’s wife HIS child, makes sure she never conceives. He takes her as his wife and enjoys the benefits of intimacy, but robs her of what she so strongly desires. Because of his bad behavior, Onan succumbs to the same fate as his older brother. God takes Onan’s life too.
Verse 11 – Judah’s promise to give Shelah to Tamar in marriage. Now Judah has lost two sons, but Tamar still has not had any children. His third son, Shelah, is supposed to marry her, but Judah is afraid maybe Tamar is cursed. He sends her to her parents’ home and tells her to wait until his youngest son is old enough to marry. However, from the text that follows we know Judah never intended to risk Shelah’s life of by giving him to Tamar. Judah said one thing, but his intentions were completely opposite.
Verses 12-19 – Judah unwittingly provides Tamar with a child. Now the story gets interesting. Judah fails Tamar. He proves to be untrustworthy. He finds a different wife for his youngest son and totally forgets about Tamar, his oldest son’s widow. Tamar, however, does not forget about Judah or the promise he broke. So she hatches her own plan to conceive a child and preserve her husband’s lineage – and it works. A lonely widower (Judah) goes looking for love and unwittingly fulfills the duty he has knowingly chosen to avoid. Tamar cleverly makes arrangements to hold some personal items of Judah’s as a guarantee to prove who she slept with.
Verses 20-23 – Tamar slips away without receiving payment. At this point we see that Judah has been duped, but he doesn’t even know it. He sends a goat as payment, as was arranged, but Tamar is nowhere to be found. In fact, the villagers explain that they have never seen a cult prostitute in that location. Judah lets the situation drop so as not to be made a laughingstock.
Verses 24-26 – Judah discovers the truth. Isn’t it odd how little Judah cares for Tamar until he finds out she is pregnant? Then, suddenly, his righteous indignation flares up and he is ready to have her burned to death. That is, until she proves, through his personal belongings he gave to her, that HE is the man who fathered her child. In that moment Judah is met with the fact that he has failed to honor his promise to Tamar. He recognizes that her righteousness in finding a way to honor her commitment to her first husband is far greater than his own.
Final verses – Tamar has twins. An extra blessing from God!
So –What is Judah’s flaw?
Right now some of you may be wondering, “Ryan, why on earth did you share this story, and what are we supposed to learn from it?” I’m glad you asked. I think Judah’s flaw is a very important one for us to dig into today. Judah proved to be untrustworthy. He made a promise to Tamar that he never planned to fulfill, and this story shows that this was not OK. This is never OK – even for us today.
Last week, as we looked at Abraham’s lack of faith in God’s promise, we also were reminded that God is a promise-keeping God. God is faithful. He is trustworthy. When He says He will do something, He will do it! We are made in God’s image, and we are called to represent Him on this earth. That means that if God is trustworthy, WE must be trustworthy. We can’t say we want to be like Jesus and then completely dismiss one of his most important character traits – His faithfulness.
That’s why Jesus teaches what seems to be a very simple lesson in His sermon on the mount when he tells His followers to “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” In context here, people had stopped being trustworthy in fulfilling their promises. They were making silly vows, some of which had loopholes that allowed them to be broken. Jesus addressed this situation when he said (in effect) “People should trust you do what you say you will do. No need for vows. Just do as you say. Be trustworthy.”
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, this doesn’t seem like an important issue. They think nothing of making promises and then failing to show up. They might be scheduled to volunteer somewhere – or be on the work schedule for a job – but if something comes up they just cut out.
I see teenagers do this all the time. They tell me they are coming to some event, but they bail when something better comes up. I see adults do the same thing. In the saddest situations, parents promise their kids they’ll show up to watch a band concert or a soccer game, but then they skip it for any number of meaningless reasons. The kids are then crushed.
When people break promises and fail to be trustworthy, they damage their relationships with others. Trust is extremely important to relationships. When a person says “YES” but means “NO,” it reflects on their character and what people think of them. That’s why God wants us to be like Him – to be faithful and trustworthy and to let our yes be yes – because that reflects on our character. In being a vocal Christian who is trustworthy, we point to the fact that we worship a God who is trustworthy. Likewise, if we tell people we are Christians but our word can’t be trusted, they why would anyone trust us when we tell them about our God?
Conclusion
We worship a God who is faithful in every way. He never breaks a promise. He never fails us. His Son, Jesus, tells us to go into all the world telling people about that God, but the only way the watching world will ever believe us is if they see that we are trustworthy people who are sharing a trustworthy message.
It seems simplistic to share an entire sermon that can be boiled down to “Let your yes be yes.” But the fact is that many Christians fail on this front and don’t realize how much it impacts their lives.
- It damages people’s perception of you as those around you learn they can’t count on you for anything.
- It hurts others who are counting on you and need you to fulfill your word.
- It challenges your credibility, which in turn diminishes your effectiveness as a witness to Jesus.
- It poorly reflects the God who faithfully fulfills all His promises even when you fail Him.
So if this is you, and you struggle to follow through on your promises and commitments, I encourage you to change your perspective on this issue. Stop seeing it as just a little issue. Stop thinking it’s no big deal if you let someone down. Stop saying, “They’ll get over it.” Recognize that this is a significant way in which you are misrepresenting your God. Strive to change.
In this regard, we must let the very nature of God guide our hearts and our actions; and as we honor our word to others, we prove our faithfulness to the One who first showed us what it means to be trusted.
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